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Shravanthi Sainath might only be in Class 12, but the girl is already a powerhouse of talent. In what can only be called a dream debut, the petite young dancer has been cast as the 16-year-old Pi’s girlfriend in the film, The Life of Pi, which hits the screens today. “I play a 16-year old Bharatanatyam dancer in the film,” begins Shravanthi. “The scenes are set in the ‘70s and I play a typical Tamilian girl living in Puducherry.”

Ask her how she bagged the role, and she explains, “I am a dancer and have been learning dance right from the age of five at Sridevi Vidyalaya under the tutelage of Sheela Unnikrishnan. The crew of the film was looking for a fresh face to cast in the film and they landed up at my dance school. My teacher gave them three photographs of girls from my class, including mine, and I was shortlisted. Following that, there was a small audition of sorts at the dance class itself, and the crew shot videos that were taken to New York. The next thing I know, I was in Taiwan for a screen test and the role was all mine.”http://http://www.deccanchronicle.co...e%E2%80%99-650

Life of Pi opens to Bombay Jayashri’s voice lilting a lullaby, as the camera follows a collection of the most exotic animals that shared screen space outside of National Geographic. This farm, we know, is so impossible in Pondicherry that, already, even before we hear of Francis Mamaji who was born with a wide chest and skinny legs, we’ve been brought to the edge of magic realism.

This is the story of a boy delivered by a herpetologist, named after a Parisian swimming pool, introduced to a trinity of religious trinities, and left adrift with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a tiger in the middle of the Pacific ocean. We meet the boy when he’s in his fifties, making wisecracks about the guilt “Catholic Hindus” carry around, as he tells his tale to an author (Rafe Spall) seeking fellowship in the wake of a novel that “sputtered, coughed and died”.

The character of the writer is presumably taken from Yann Martel’s Acknowledgments in the novel, where he mentions India being a cheaper place to live in than Portugal. And the film finds its voice through juxtaposition of the past with the present, given coherence by the narrative of the adult Pi (Irrfan Khan). The tones of the colour palette change as we move from the sixties to the seventies to the millennium, from Pondicherry to the high seas to Montreal.

I can’t recall when a more beautiful film was made based on a brooding fantasy novel. And this one is arguably better than the book, because it builds on it. Here, we don’t see just one aspect of the life of Pi, but his whole life - his family, his first love, his philosophical preoccupations, his adventure, his guilt, his sorrow, his new life. In the poetic fluidity of the film, the allegory of life and devotion that is the premise of the book draws us in. It isn’t cloying, it’s heartbreaking. It isn’t optimistic, it’s incidental. This isn’t an adventure, it’s life.

Somehow, Ang Lee makes us laugh far more often than the script warrants. Sometimes, it’s the genius of lines like, “Thank you, Vishnu, for introducing me to Christ”. Sometimes, it’s the timing of as simple a word as “idiot”. Sometimes, it’s a manual for survival that suggests “community singing” as a way to keep one’s hopes up. Most often, it’s the seamless manner in which the screenplay guides the actors, so that every coincidence irrationally pushes the story further into the realm of credibility. Among my favourite scenes is that of the family’s reaction to Pi’s search for religion. Another is the manner in which Piscine changes his name to ‘Pi’, convincing his schoolmates of it - though that’s slightly marred by his getting the value of pi wrong. Even in his small role, Adil Hussain, playing a polio-afflicted zoo owner, shows us what a fine actor he is. And Tabu, except for the atrocious Tamil she speaks (seriously, why not dub?), is a decent fit. But the revelation in the film is young Suraj Sharma, who outshines Irrfan Khan, to make our memory of the teenage Pi more abiding than that of the adult Pi. He never hams, even when he has to do the most ridiculous things.

With a script that is so restrained, the overwhelming beauty of the film truly touches the audience. The graphics are so well done we can rarely make out how much of it is CGI.

Tamil Pi has less takers in Pondy
It may be shot here based on a story that happened here. But, the Tamil version of Life of Pi, the latest movie from Oscar-award-winning director Ang Lee, has apparently failed to enthuse film buffs in Puducherry when it was released on Friday.

The theatre was half empty for the first three shows and the trend is likely to continue, according to a theatre staff member.

“We have 1,098 seats and nearly half were filled,” an employee of the Raja Theatre told Express.

This lukewarm response comes as a surprise as large portions of the movie were filmed in Pi’s native place Puducherry. Life of Pi is a screen adaptation of Canadian author Yann Martel’s 2001 work by the same name. The adventure drama, shot in 3D, revolves around a perilous voyage that 16-year-old Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi) is literally thrown into following his family’s bid to leave Puducherry during the Emergency. The film depicts Pi’s magic realistic struggle to survive a 227-day journey in the Pacific Ocean onboard a lifeboat, fighting hunger, uncertainty, loneliness and a Royal Bengal tiger.

Muthukumar, who watched the 2.30 pm show felt the second half of the film was a bit of a drag. But he lauded Suraj Sharma’s acting.

Indian actor Sharma (17) played the role of young Pi.

There were a few who were impressed by the visual appeal of Lee’s work. “It is pictured beautifully. We cannot believe that some of the parts shown are Puducherry,” said Jagan, who walked in for a matinee show.

Meanwhile, some movie-goers lamented the fact that the movie was released in Tamil. “I think I missed the real experience by watching the Tamil version,” said Ananda.

As Vijay-starrer Thuppakki continues to score high with the city’s box office, theatre employees seem skeptical about Life of Pi’s success in the Union Territory.